


The Hand of God Hath No Gentle Breeze

by Manya_Kami



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Cloud-centric, Drabble, F/M, Fem!Cloud, Kamikaze Pilot!Zack, Miscarriage mention, OOC-ness, Sadness, WWII AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 19:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11928096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manya_Kami/pseuds/Manya_Kami
Summary: On a day so impossibly far from this, I wish to meet you again.I wish to meet you in the sky.





	The Hand of God Hath No Gentle Breeze

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the translation of Kamikaze: "God's Wind."

Day after day, day after day, she is hearing about it. 

She doesn't want to - but he  _talks_ , of dreams, and glory, and honor and death - and she has to will her faith in him not to waver. 

They're young, she and Zack, with herself already six weeks along, and the fact that she hasn't anyone to go to during these trying times certainly  _does_ make it harder. 

She wants to live a soft life, with him. A loving life. A long life. 

And it's not as though he doesn't  _know_ ; she knows he knows, and she knows why he peppers their conversation with empowered details about the war and the forces but never addresses the elephant in the room - and she has to will her faith in him not to waver. 

For the time being, she thinks she can, because above all else Zack is still  _her_ Zack and she can feign ignorance if it means he will still laugh and touch and cradle her during the night. 

 

* * *

 

 

All all of their friends have gone, at this point.

Gone to do what Zack so longs to - and she  _knows_ she's holding him back and she gently places his hand on her swollen belly and unspeakingly proposes an impossible ultimatum to him.

And it was so painful, to see them all leave at once, not one with a wife to kiss goodbye or a family to write. She had always been such a shy girl, but Zack had gotten her to open up around Kunsel, a rather persnickety buddy of Zack's, then Angeal, his father-figure, and before she'd realized it  she was totally assimilated into Zack's clique.

(Zack's clique, which now lies in glassy fractals, drifting so high above the clouds, shattered in the face of godforsaken  _honor_ )

But he stays around, for her, because he knows it's hard, and  _because_ he knows it's hard, he will laugh and smile with her still - and she has to will her faith in him not to waver. 

It's not as though she feels no guilt, either, but who is she to feel guilty, when she's not the one dancing on a thinning line of honor and love?

 

* * *

 

 

There's so much blood. It's everywhere.

It's staining the floor. It's staining her clothes. It's staining  _her_ , and her already fading resolve, but worst of all it's staining Zack, who's trying to shake the life back into her eyes as the image of a broken dream flutters behind her eyelids.

It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. 

And it  _burns_ \- oh god does it burn - deep in her throat where she wants to scream, because it's  _dead_ , and even  _thinking_ those words challenges her ability to breathe clearly.

Somewhere in the distance, Zack is holding her, cradling her, like a doll, and she wonders absentmindedly, if somewhere in that head of his he's willing his faith in her not to waver.

Meanwhile, the blood on the floor is lapping at her legs.

_It_ is lapping at the welt between them.

She wants nothing more than to kick it all away, but she's stuck, because Zack is straddling her with his legs on either side of hers' and his arms wrapped terribly around her shoulders.

 

* * *

 

 

The war-talk has resumed again. Day after day.

The logical part of her brain tells her that it's an attempt, on his part, to gain a semblance of normalcy again, but the rest of her has slowed,  _slowed_ to the point of her barely caring nowadays.

And bless Zack's fast-beating heart; he  _swears_ he'll never do it, never abandon her, and the cynical part of her says it's because her grey world is tainting his glittering illusion of  _honor_.

Somewhere inside of her, she  _knows_ ; he's more alone than ever ( _they're_ more alone than ever) and chances are there's still a waning piece of him that wants to taste glory.

_So let him_ , some terrible part of her says, and suddenly the tears are brilling in her lovely ocean eyes again, and he's holding her  _close,_ so close - and she has to will her faith in him not waver once more.

 

* * *

 

 

She's alone now.

In some ways, totally, and in others, barely, but the gist of it is: Zack's gone off to war.

He hasn't done  _it_ yet.

After all, he'd  _sworn_ he wouldn't.

And even with her grey, slow-moving little world holding her down, something in her still has the resilience to  _ache_. A dreadful, heart-throbbing ache leading her to choke deep in her core.

Because deep, deep down, she  _knows_.

She can feel it coming, running up to her like her little lost child coming back to seek the embrace and warmth of their mother. 

And the part that makes her the saddest and crunches her heart the smallest, is the fact that she awaits the smiling child with open arms, smiling back, to pick it up in her arms and cradle it beside her bossom.

Her faith in Zack has never really wavered. He'll always be the eccentric teenage boy who had come over to comfort her after the first school field-trip; who'd held her sun-kissed hair back while motion sickness wracked her body; who'd invited her to eat lunch on the roof with his friends, because she had none of her own.

But now, now he has the chance of becoming something more.

Something he'd forever dreamed of being.

 

* * *

 

 

_To Spikey, the love of my life._

_I've thought so much about you in this passing trickle of time that I hear your voice often, and I dream so fondly of you. I'm sure your thoughts are similar to mine on a level._

_I'm now a part of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, and I like to believe this is the stage of my life in which I'll become glorious. I've imagine many a time a beautiful red flower, swallowing me up._

_Please, my lovely, honorable Cloud, I ask that you understand. While this is most definitely our final goodbye before I am to join our dear friends in the place above the sky, I give to you my legacy. My honor, my dreams, they're yours now._

_Even if you are alone for the rest of your days, please do not weep, my darling, because I will be waiting so eagerly with our friends for you._

_On a day so impossibly far from this, I wish to meet you again._

_I wish to meet you in the sky._

_Your Beloved, Zack._

 

* * *

 

 

She loves him so much.

Every part, his dancing, bounding, laughing personality that sprinkles onto others, as he smiles with her like he's never smiled before.

It's enough to make her dance, and laugh, too, as she picks up their son in her arms, a charming dream she's decided to call  _Denzel_ , who laughs and dances with them underneath the shimmering sunlight.

And Zack's friends are here too, smiling brighter than she'd ever seen them, chatting amongst themselves as they watch the happy family dance in the circle.

But the illusion can only last so long.

When Cloud opens her glistening eyes, she's seated on the floor of their empty living quarters, clutching desperately a piece of paper written in handwriting so neat she might almost mistake it not to be Zack's.

She opens the waterworks, but works her muscles to upturn her mouth in a small smile, breathlessly dreaming of her happily ever after.

_Thank you for waiting._

_I want to meet you too._

_I want to meet you in the sky._

 

 


End file.
